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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27244510">All Hallow's Eve</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You'>Not_You</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Not_You's Pandemic Follies [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Punisher (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Catholicism, Cute Kids, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Ghosts, Mild Blood, Purgatory, Spooky, discussion of suicide but nobody is doing that, sometimes nervous people deal the best with the weird shit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:27:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>922</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27244510</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As I saw on a fic years ago, it didn't happen this way, it couldn't have happened this way, but maybe it should have.  Lisa and Frank Jr. just want Miss Joan to know she's doing a super-good job helping Dad maintain his soul and stuff.  They really appreciate it.  (Hope I did a decent job on the kids, AliuIce, you're the one who really characterized them. &lt;3)</p><p>(This is a slight AU for The Frank And Joan Thread, which is part of She Who Must Be Obeyed.  For those not familiar, the Punisher's dead kids are visiting his new girlfriend, the shy and adorable neighbor woman in the apartment he has moved into a few years after their death, in a non-superhero universe where he's not the Punisher, just [very understandably] messed up.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Frank Castle/Joan (Punisher)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Not_You's Pandemic Follies [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683655</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All Hallow's Eve</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliuIce0814/gifts">AliuIce0814</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleBird20/gifts">LittleBird20</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You wake her up,” a little boy’s voice whispers.  “I’m scared.”</p><p>“Silly, we’re the one’s who are ghosts!” A girl’s voice, a little older.  And there’s something familiar about them.  </p><p>Kids from class, maybe?  But why would they be here at-- Joan sits bolt upright because it’s three in the morning and no one should be here right now.  Not even Frank, he’s at the first industry conference he couldn’t wriggle out of, and the reality of intruders really sets in and if someone is here to harm her Joan will fight with everything she has to keep Frank from losing anyone else.</p><p>Standing at the foot of her bed are two children and Joan would know them if she had never seen a picture.  The girl about seven, the boy about five, one blonde and one dark.  They look like Frank and they look like the smiling photos of Maria Castiglione and her two children from the news articles about the mob hit in Central Park.  The children glow just a bit, in the dark, and are a little translucent, as befits ghosts.</p><p>“Hi, Miss Joan!” Lisa chirps.  “Please don’t be scared, I know we’re all bloody.”  And they are, Lisa in a beautiful white dress, what her mother must have intended to make for her First Communion, and little Frank must be wearing his burial suit, dark blue with a soberly striped tie.  It makes him look a bit like a miniature banker, but a well-dressed one, and both of them are just doused with blood, in a way they couldn’t have been at their funerals.</p><p>“I’m sorry you still are,” Joan says, because she is.  They shouldn’t have to be bloody, they should be past all this.</p><p>“We wear it to stay close to Dad,” Junior says, shrugging.  “It’s icky, but it works.”</p><p>“We’ll be able to take it off when we move on, and it’s not that bad,” Lisa says, and then adds sternly, “<i>no hurry.</i>  We used to be really really worried that Dad would hurry, but I think it’s okay now.”  Her solemn expression suddenly cracks in a wide, sunny smile.  “Because of you!  We figured seeing us would just make him sadder, but we wanted you to know that you’re doing a good job and that Mom thinks you’re <i>great</i>.”</p><p>That actually is very gratifying to hear.  Frank doesn't talk about Maria much, and Joan still isn’t sure which of them, Maria or herself, that he’s worried about being disrespectful to.  “Th-thank you,” she says, and Junior smiles.</p><p>“You seem like a nice lady, Miss Joan,” he says, and he’s so much like his father that it makes her stomach hurt.</p><p>“We can see people’s souls,” Lisa adds, “’cause we’re dead.  Yours has a lot of light, and it’s all pretty and delicate.”</p><p>“...Have you seen your father’s?” Joan asks, because surreal as this is, it’s the first thing she thinks of.</p><p>“Yeah! That’s part of why we’re here, you’ve made a bunch of the gunk come off!”</p><p>“Gunk?” Joan asks, tilting her head to the side.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s normal to have dark spots and be kinda shadowy when you’ve been hurt as bad as Dad was, but some of the dark spots were all oily and horrible, like they needed someone to clean them.  And you have!  Thanks again, we’ve been <i>so</i> worried.  Mom said he’d be okay, but it was like she was trying to make herself believe it.”</p><p>“Are you supposed to be here?” Joan asks, suspicion dawning.</p><p>“Mmmmaaaybe,” Lisa says, shuffling incorporeal feet.</p><p>“Lisa Ann Castiglione,” Joan says, “you and your brother go right back up to Heaven, or wherever your mother is!”</p><p>“We’re in Purgatory,” Junior says, and Joan’s horror must show on her face.  “We’re not in trouble!  I mean, we did some sins, but I was too little to count and Lisa was almost too little.  She worked everything off a while ago, and Mom is nearly through ‘cause she was really good, but we’re mostly just waiting for Dad before we move on.”</p><p>“And Mom doesn’t want him to know that, because he might feel bad, or want to hurry, or something dumb like that,” Lisa says.  “You know, Miss Joan.  You’re s’posed to live out your time, whatever it is.”</p><p>“You never know when you’re gonna get blessed after something really really bad,” Junior adds, and Joan’s eyes fill with tears, because it’s what she has always told herself when suicide started to seem like a good idea.</p><p>“Thank you,” she says through her tears.  “I wish I could hug you, but my arms would just go through, wouldn’t they?”</p><p>“Nah,” Lisa says, “you just can’t see and touch at the same time.  Close your eyes, and we’ll hug you goodbye.”</p><p>Joan closes her eyes, and sure enough, feels two little sets of arms around her, warm and hugging tightly, with all the weight of real children.  She does her best to memorize the feeling, wishing she could give it to Frank.</p><p>Lisa must hear her thinking, because as the feeling fades away and her voice does too, her last words are, “Don’t worry, Miss Joan, we’ll go in his dreams and hug him, that won’t mess him up so bad.”</p><p>Joan has to suppose that they’re right.  The smart thing to do would be to roll over and go back to sleep so this could be a dream.  Instead, she gets up and makes tea and toast, and watches for the sun to come up.</p>
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